EPA turns up climate heat as Senate dithers

- Six of the 10 most active hurricane seasons have occurred since the mid-1990s.

- Eight of the top 10 years for "extreme one-day precipitation events" (aka deluges or blizzards) have occurrred since 1990.

- The sea surface temperature has increased, with average temperatures in the past three decades higher than at any time since large-scale measurements began over a century ago.

- The average length of the growing season in the lower 48 states has grown by about two weeks since the beginning of the last century; much of the increase has occurred in the last 30 years.

- Birds in North America (like these brown pelicans at Barren Island in the Chesapeake Bay) have shifted their wintering grounds northward by about 35 miles since 1966, with a few moving hundreds of miles.  Birds also have shifted inland from the coasts, another indication of warming interior temperatures.

- Though snow varies from year to year, the amount of North America covered by white stuff any given year was significantly lower, on average, from 2000 to 2008, than it was during the 1970s.

For more on the report, go here.

Graham reportedly pulled out to protest plans by the Senate's Democratic leaders to take up immigration reform before the climate bill.  Some fear climate legislation may be doomed this year unless the Senate takes it up before becoming embroiled in a debate over confirming President Obama's next pick for the Supreme Court.

(Baltimore Sun photos 2006 heat wave, Karl Merton Ferron; 2003 geese, Algerina Perna. 2009 Senators, AP)